Perspectives on the beautiful game of soccer; fueled by enormous amounts of coffee

Monday, March 24, 2014

DWTS - Second Night

Double elimination jeopardy!

And Drew and Cheryl are safe right off the bat! Way to vote, Sounders fans! Oh, and they're dancing first this time. Ok, a short night of blogging for me.

Drew is happy about not being eliminated. Cheryl is also cool with dancing first. Drew actually picks the jive first. Yikes. That's a fast dance for a not-young guy. He's frustrated in the dance rehearsals.

Drew jumps off the stage and tears his jacket off! Faster foot flicks, Drew. He gets off-beat a couple of times, too, but he's smiling and jiving through the dance.
Len congratulates the content, tells Drew to work on footwork and posture. Bruno calls Drew a "stage animal". He doesn't add that he means, "dancing bear". Adds that Drew covered the mistakes well.
Carrie Ann commends Drew's courage in tackling the jive. She's nicely telling him he shouldn't have done it, basically. Anyway, she also says that he might be "surprised" by the scoring. Drew looks slightly worried.
Erin in her interview comments how comfortable Drew is in front of live audiences. The judges score 7-7-7 = 21. Pretty generous, considering the mistakes.
Ok, Drew's done.
Billie Dee and Emma are safe? Really? Crazy. I thought for sure he was gone. Meryl and Max are safe. Good. Danica and Val are safe, too. They're dancing next.
In the practice reel, Val is unhappy with their 8 scores, since Candace got a nine. Danica's not so bent out of shape about it. Val is pushing her, though. She's nervous and upset. First tears. Val apologizes and tries to loosen up a bit.
Now the dance. Danica's all in gold - doesn't have the freewheeling attitude of a samba dancer, but she's trying. The nerves stiffen her up, though. She does show more confidence in certain parts. Tom B. calls her a "sexy mathmetician" Bruno calls out her lack of details on the transition elements. Carrie Ann uses the word "sexy" three times - also "flawless". Len tells her to keep keeping on. Fantastico. Danica looks happy, but still nervous. Loosen up, lady. Erin uses the word, "sexy" in her commentary, too. 8-8-8 - 24 - Val looks a little miffed, but tries not to show it to Danica, who says she had "fun" with the dance.

Tom is doing his best, but this new trick of calling people out as safe or not throughout the program kind of interrupts stuff. I guess they want to keep the audience members on the edge of their seats.

Billie Dee's not buying Emma's logic of "the last shall be first". Billy is doing the tango and saying he is old. His back hurts. Emma is trying to keep his spirits up. Emma brings in extra ladies to the tango dance. Billy quotes William Earnest Henley "I am the master of my fate".

In the dance, he is playing a tango pimp. That's an original approach. It works, of course, because the original tango dancers were ladies of the night. It also allows Billy to do less dancing and more waving his arms about with style. I guess that's a type of dancing. Carrie Ann gives him pointers, but basically says more content was needed. Len needs less ivy, more attack. Bruno says, "Stylized, minimal approach", but agrees there needs to be more actual dance involved. Erin leans on Billy Dee (bad! he's got back and hip issues) 5-5-5 =15

Meryl and Maks! In the practice clips, Meryl chooses swing and says she isn't nervous. Maks, however, is nervous about the lifts. He isn't used to throwing - and it's taking a toll. He says he's old. Dude, talk to Billy Dee. Meryl is dancing to a Big Bad Voodoo Daddy classic - in a bra, basically. The skirt is cute, but really, a bra? She more than keeps up with the speed of the dance, which gets to Maks a little bit. Len, "that swing had wings". Bruno thought the level of difficulty was great, but noticed the timing was off at times. Maks take issue - Maks always gets onery. Carrie points out how hard Maks had to work, commends Meryl's athleticism. Maks grumps at Erin about the score, but 8-9-8 - Maks cheers up at Len's nine, wishes Val a happy birthday.

Amy and Derek are safe. Candace and Mark are, too. Diane and Henry are going home. They don't even get to dance. I didn't see her last week. She is very kind about the elimination, compliments her partner. She still gets to dance, though, and she wants to do so. Cha, cha. She is stiff, but she smiles a lot. Certainly more dancing there than Billy Dee. Tom calls her a "good sport" and she is.

Jeremy Miller politically says that he is rooting for both Candace and Danica. Candace is nervous about the rhumba with Mark - due to her religious beliefs, she wants to be sensual, not sexual. Semantics, Candace.

But they're dancing to "Say Something", which is just a sad song. So yeah, not too sexy. Total breakup song. Lots of back arching. Carrie Ann wanted to see more rhumba steps, less contemporary lifts and stuff. Maybe Candace should have let Mark take his shirt off. 7 -7-7 Fair.